Thursday, July 6, 2017

A Guest Post by Christina Lorenzen about Rapunzel and a Lighthouse

The sweetest memories I have are the times my grandmother would sit at the foot of my bed and tell me my favorite bedtime story, Rapunzel. My grandmother lived with us for as long as I can remember until she passed away when I was in my early twenties. As a child, my parents would go out for an evening. I would wait for bedtime when my grandmother would ask me what bedtime story I wanted to hear. And each time I would ask to hear Rapunzel. Just as I never tired of hearing her tell it and my grandmother never tired of telling me that fairy tale.

All these years later, when my publisher, Forget Me Not Romances, announced they were putting out a novella collection of fairy tales with a modern spin, I had the pleasure of writing my own version of Rapunzel. The classic tower became a defunct, dilapidated lighthouse and my heroine, Georgie Daniels, is a self-imprisoned longhaired damsel in distress. Raised by her father after her mother dies when she’s barely two years old, Georgie’s father passed away two years ago. Add to that the heartache of her fiancé abandoning her and she has shut out the world, finding security within the walls of the lighthouse cottage.

Writing this novella was such an enjoyable endeavor. I have wanted to write a story with a lighthouse setting for several years. Being able to combine that magical setting with my favorite fairy tale was more play than work. I researched lighthouses and learned quite a bit about them. My heroine Georgie is based on a friend from long ago. The hero, Colby Ford, was a combination of several ‘hero’ type men in my life. I’m proud to say that I have both an Air Force uncle and Navy uncle in my family.

After writing Rapunzel’s Lighthouse, my interest in putting a modern spin on another fairy tale has been sparked. There just might be another military hero in there too. That’s the wonderful thing about storytelling – there are no limits to the possibilities of ideas. Who would have thought that almost fifty years after first hearing my grandmother tell the tale, I would write my very own Rapunzel story? I think she would be pleased.

~*~Author Bio:

Christina started writing as a young teen, jotting stories in wire ring composition notebooks. Her first typewriter made it faster to get all those stories out of her head and down on paper. Her love of writing has sustained her through a myriad of jobs that included hairdresser, legal secretary, waitress and door-­to-door saleswoman.

Luckily for her, writing proved to be successful and a lot less walking than going door to door. Snow Globe Reunion, a Christian Christmas romance, is Christina’s third book. She is also the author of A Husband for Danna and its sequel, A Wife for Humphrey.

Christina is a member of Romance Writers of America and American Christian Fiction Writers. When she isn’t writing or reading, she can be found walking her dog, talking to her herd of cats and spending time with her family.

~*~Book blurb for Rapunzel's Lighthouse: Georgie Daniels rarely leaves the cottage attached to the Salt Cliffs lighthouse, except when necessary for a trip into town for food. For the last two years, since the lighthouse was declared a historic landmark, she’s lived in the cottage out of sight and, she hopes, out of the minds of the town. With the defunct lighthouse in arrears and in disrepair, she knows it’s only a matter of time before the lighthouse will be on the auction block of the town hall’s steps. With long hair that no one has seen before, except in the fabled fairy tale Rapunzel, things were going well until new neighbor Colby Ford shows up on her doorstep.

Colby Ford didn’t intend to retire from the Navy, at least not right now. When he finds himself with an injury that pushes him into an early retirement, the possibility of opening a sailing school in the coastal town of Salt Cliffs is his only hope. Renting the Moore cottage, he needs to find the right location for his school and a place to store the boats.

While in town, a conversation with a storekeeper makes his curiosity about the lighthouse burn even stronger – what kind of woman lives alone in a defunct lighthouse?

In need of paint for the cottage porch, he pays Georgie a visit. Feeling like he’s seen her before, that’s when it hits him – Georgie Daniels is a real life Rapunzel. And this Rapunzel wants nothing to do with being neighborly. Until she’s forced to save him during a storm.

Georgie and Colby have both had their share of disappointments and heartache. Just as Georgie is beginning to open up to him, a letter she finds threatens to shut her down again. Can their shared desperate need for a home bring them together?

About Me

Life is beautiful!
I love discovering the various reasons why life is beautiful each and every day as I live and grow up in my walk (faith journey) with Jesus Christ.
I'd love to hear what you think of my blog posts! You can e-mail me at capturingidea@gmail.com